Group Discussion about "The Confessions of a Closet Catholic"

I found our discussion of this book very interesting. During our discussion, the main focus revolved around the portrayal of her parents as holocaust survivors. We had a good discussion about how she wanted to become a catholic and how her parents didnt like the fact that she was going to become a catholic when her grandparents were survivors of the holocaust.

i think it was a valuable disucssion because it opened my eyes to the fact that religion should be a person thing and no one should tell anyone what to do, even if it is sur parents.

an interesting point was the fact that her parents were so much against her becoming a catholic. they weren't into their religion so much and when she wanted to change her religion, they were so against it. it was also interesting that her grandmother was teh one person that was ok wiith her changing her religion and she was the person who was persecuted for the religion that she was. i think that it was interesting because she had to fight for her religion and then is ok with her granddaughter changing her religion. i think this emphasizes the fact taht relgion is a specific thing and shouldnt be forced on by anyone, even your parents.


our conversation outside of class was very interesting and i started looking at the book in a different light because of this meeting and discussion

Final Project Post

I just wanted to post about my final project and why i chose to do my final project on this specific topic. I am going to do my final project on disability. I chose this because my mom has a disability that she has had since she was a baby. i was wondering how much chiildren's literature was out there for students with disabilities. I know that this might have changed since the time my mom was a child, but i started thinking about this because i wnated to know if she ever saw a book with a child with a disability in it.

i think this is an important topic and i just wanted to explain why i chose the topic i did and i am very excited to see what i will find out about children's literature in regards to disabilities.

Sydney Taylor Award

The purpose of this Sydney Taylor Award is to encourage the publication of outstanding books of Jewish content for children. It spotlights books that are of the highest literary standards and includes authentic content of Judaism.

This award was created in 1968 under a different name, The Shirley Kavitz Children's Book Award. It was renamed the Sydney Taylor Award in 1978.

The style of the award has changed over the years. It originally awarded only one book per year. In 1981 they started recognizing two books per year, one picture book and one novel. There is a committee that carefully evaluates the books and selects a winner.

The criteria for the award includes:
Literary and artistic merit,
positive Jewish content and focus,
age appropriateness in terms of style, vocabulary, content, format, and illustration,
and accuracy.

2006 winners:
Younger reader: Hanukkah at Valley Forge by Steven Krensky illustrated by Greg Harlin
Teen winner: Julia's Kitchen by Brenda Ferber

Some honor award winners 2006 (young reader):
I Am Marc Chagall by Bimba Landmann
Rebecca's Journey Home by Brynn Olenberg Sugarman

When we went to the library to check out some of the Sydney Taylor Award books, there were not very many available. We found one younger read book and two juvenile fiction book (teen reader). One of the two teen reader books was checked out which made us happy! :) Unfortunately we didn't find the majority of the books listed on the website that won this award.

When looking up the Sydney Taylor Award on the internet we found no "official website" but there was information about it on the "Association of Jewish Libraries" website. When you go to this website you will find a long list of books that have either been awarded or honored in regards to this award.

please check out www.jewishlibraries.org for more info!

Insider/Outsider Debate

This week we had an interesting discussion about how important it is to have Native American people writing stories and children's literature, not just people who think they know about Native Americans. When I first think about the insider/outsider debate, i immediately think that only insiders should be writing about the ethnic group that they belong to. i feel this way because then they will be giving the reader a true understanding about what it is like to be a part of that group instead of just what it seems like to be a part of that group.

It is hard to say whether a person who isn't in a specific culture should be writing about that culture. I feel like this might lead to stereotypes coming out because the person who is writing about it hasn't experienced what a person from that cutlure has experienced. I feel like the reader will get a better understanding and a truer feeling about a culture if the person who wrote it has really experienced what they are writing about.

I would never try to write a story about something that i have never experineced. I would feel fake and i would be nervous about portraying something that i have never experineced and don't know if it really is like what i am saying.

I would like to know what other people feel about this subject and i am interested to hear about this in class.

Dana

class blog site

http://msute448fs07.blogspot.com/

First Post

Hi!

My name is Dana Greaves and I'm a senior in Elementary Education at MSU. My specialization is in Language Arts and I'm really interested in literacy.

I am excited about this class because I took TE 348 and i loved the class. I find that except over the summer, i don't have a lot of time to read books for pleasure and when i take youth lit. classes is allows me to find interesting books and discuss them and i actually enjoy and look forward to reading the books in class.

I don't have a lot of experience with diverse literature and that was one main reason why i wanted to take this class. I think that i will learn a lot about what good diverse literature is and why it is so important to have diverse literature in your classroom.

I'm really excited about this class and to learn as much as i can about diversity in youth literature!

-dana